As part of the Visiting Professors Programme (IDUB), prof. John Healey (University of Manchester) will deliver a lecture entitled Aramaic koinē in the Roman-Period Middle East: Allāt and Atargatis beyond boundaries.
John Healey is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Manchester, where he was Professor of Semitic Studies until 2013. His main research has been on Aramaic epigraphy in the Greek and Roman Middle East. Having published extensively on Nabataean and Old Syriac inscriptions and to a lesser extent on Palmyrene Aramaic and Hatran Aramaic, he is currently working on projects connected with Nabataean language and early Syriac legal texts. He has secondary interests in the history of alphabetic writing in the Middle East, in Ugaritic language and literature and in the Hebrew Bible. Many of his publications are concerned with evidence of religion in pre-Islamic Syria and North Arabia”.